On August 20, 2000, a man named Carl Barks passed from this world. In America, his home country, his passing went unnoticed. But that should hardly surprise us, he was just a Disney comic book artist, after all, hardly an important cultural figure.

Yet elsewhere in the world, he was remembered and mourned. In Europe, Donald Duck comics have never been out of print, and remain popular amongst both adults and children. Though it is noted that Osamu Tezuka, the 'father or manga' was heavily influenced by Disney, it was Barks who wrote and illustrated the comics that Tezuka was reading (a fact Tezuka was aware of, since he sent this Christmas card to Barks years later). Likewise, some of the most famous and influential Franco-Belgian comics, Tintin, Spirou, and Asterix owe much of their style and content to Barks' earlier work (and those aren't the comic's only innovations).

I know many of my peers have fond memories of the Duck Tales television series, without ever recognizing that the series was the result of Barks' legacy—his stories, and his characters. Because Barks created Duckberg, Scrooge McDuck, the Beagles Boys, Magica De Spell, and others.

I'm sure many of us were thinking, at the time, that the pulp archaeology stories of that show were just piggybacking on the popularity of Indiana Jones, but actually, the reverse is true. Barks drew on the literary traditions of characters like Allan Quatermain and Doc Savage in creating his own cliffhanger stories, and his 'Duck Comics' inspired Lucas and Spielberg when they created Indiana Jones, right down to the famous boulder scene, which originally appeared in a Bark's comic.

It's unfortunate that, despite numerous attempts, Disney has not been able to keep Duck Comics in print in America for decades, and that the Animation Age Ghetto has prevented many Americans from developing an appreciation for Barks and his exciting adventure stories—but I'm not going to be one of them.

This collection has the very earliest Barks stories, which already show a sense of character and movement which became evident in later cartoons. Back when it was Disney's policy not to put author or artist names in their comics, people still recognized Bark's talent, which set him above any other artist at the time, earning him the nickname 'the Good Duck Artist', which stuck around even after Disney made him the first to be able to put his name to his work.

There's a vibrant sense of movement and slapstick here that is impressive in the still medium of comics. It is early, so it doesn't yet bear the hallmarks of his influential later work, but the roots are there, and not difficult to see. I'm looking forward to continuing what is supposed to be one of the best archaeological adventure series since Haggard and Kipling.